Swedish death metal veterans Sarcasm have recently unleashed an album (yes, an actual album!) full of dark melodies, razor sharp riffing, atmospheric passages and catchy hooks. ‘Within The Sphere Of Ethereal Minds’ (recently released on Dark Descent) takes the listener on a multi-faceted musical journey with many twists and turns that takes you right back to the glory days of the early to mid ’90s melodic death metal scene before the genre became oversaturated and commercialised. There is a blackened edge to their aural aggression too much in the same vein as their fellow countrymen Unanimated and Dissection. Iron Fist spoke with frontman Heval Bozarslan to find out more about the album and comeback.

Your latest full-length ‘Within The Sphere Of Ethereal Minds’ just came out, what can we expect and are you pleased with it? They can expect 35 minutes of jaw-dropping, ball-crushing, catchy yet face-melting death metal. I’m more than satisfied, even though I listened to the pre-production demos a thousand times and knew that this material was strong I didn’t know it would turn out this good. All the people involved really gave 100 percent and believed in this. And so far the reaction from people who have heard it … Read More

The notorious Cleveland-based Midnight recently unleashed another punked-up metal massacre with the ‘Shox Of Violence’ EP via Hells Headbangers. It features four new songs and acts as a stop gap between the last album ‘No Mercy For Mayhem’ (released in 2014) and the upcoming new full-length. There is a compilation with the same title, which has also recently just come out, featuring the new EP plus a veritable feast of bonus cover songs, demo tracks and live recordings, including a couple of Venom covers, a host of covers by punk bands such as The Spits and Pagans, as well as Girlschool, Quiet Riot amongst others, all of which have been given the dirty, unholy and rotten Midnight treatment. We caught up with mainman/guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Athenar to find out more about the EP, compilation and the current activities of the band.

You have a new EP and compilation ‘Shox Of Violence’, can you elaborate on what this new release contains and what the readers can expect in comparison to the last full-length? Athenar: It’s a four song EP of tunes to blast out of your stereo! Please don’t expect much, keep your expectations in life low; it’s much easier that way. I don’t wanna … Read More

HARD ROCK HELL NWOBHM 02 ACADEMY SHEFFIELD

It’s clear that the inaugural HRH NWOBHM festival has piggy-backed on or at least benefited from Brofest’s ability to persuade long-defunct bands to reform. Of the army of acts on the two-day line-up, many have already trodden the Brofest boards. But a good idea is a good idea, and the bands themselves are unlikely to care whether they’re revisiting their glory years in Newcastle, Nuneaton, Newport or – for the next 48 hours – right here in Sheffield. While London has a proud NWOBHM history of its own, it’s somehow fitting to witness this particular event taking place beyond the rapacious event horizon of the Capital. Even during the winter of discontent from which the NWOBHM sprang, the regions – in this case the former mining and heavy industrial hub of South Yorkshire – laboured under an investment and infrastructure deficit when compared to London and the South East in general. Sheffield may have come a long way since 1979, and avoided being nuked a la ‘Threads’, but in the frozen half-light of a December dusk, it’s all too easy for the mind to time-hop back to the bleaker days of Saxon’s ‘Hungry Years’.

PERSIAN RISK

As … Read More

Spitting black fire since 2000, Vornth have followed their self-titled 2013 debut with a second album of Venom-ous filth. ‘Black Pyres’ is out today as a Samhain offering, with lashings of Teutonic thrash fury, blackened ire and traditional heavy metal speed. Hailing from Sweden, the band have returned to the Iron Tyrant family – home of Profanal, Mortuary Drape and Culte Des Ghoules – and feature Janne Rimmerfors on battery, Ewil Johansson on bass and Erik Blackflexer on guitars. 

Citing “our own Electric Blood” as their only influence (despite hearing Kreator, Destruction, Mercyful Fate and even early Candlemass proudly in their sound) they say of today’s heavy metal scene that “Rock ‘n’ roll should be strong and alive. Metal should be more strong and more alive.”

We couldn’t agree more. “We chose Iron Tyrant and they chose us,” Erik continues of working with such an eminent underground heavy metal stable. “It’s a brotherhood if you like. You always see who and which bands are going strong when times get rough; that is the real difference between illusion and the definitive. We feel part of a community of hard working musicians and artists that fight with integrity no matter what. We are Vornth which we have proven a long time … Read More

BLITZKRIEG LIVE AT THE PENNY GILL, SPENNYMOOR JUNE 18 2016

It’s not very often you see a legendary NWOBHM band play in the back room of a small pub, in a small town, in North East England. Especially one that had such a notable and huge influence on the likes of Metallica, undeniably one of the biggest metal bands ever and even covered and recorded a cover of their self-titled classic anthem on their ‘Creeping Death’ EP way back in the early ’80s, playing it live well into the touring cycle for ‘Master Of Puppets’.

Along with bands such as Angel Witch, Diamond Head, Raven and Venom, Blitzkrieg were at the forefront of the early ’80s burgeoning heavy metal movement and have been recording albums, playing live and touring ever since. This was the second time the band played The Penny Gill, a small lively rock/biker pub in Spennymoor a small ex-mining community in County Durham. This was a no airs, no graces affair, as close and personal as you can get; no stage, barriers or security separating the band from the fans.

There was no support band either, this was merely an intimate warm-up show for the Garage Days Revisited festival in London … Read More

Former Motörhead manager Tom Doherty has joined ranks with Plastichead’s Steve Beatty to launch a new record label, Dissonance Productions, it has been announced.

The label, which launches next month, will be distributed by Plastichead and Beatty’s new American arm, Abstract Distribution and will focus solely on established artists and back catalogue, many of which are rarely off the stereo at Iron Fist UK.

Concentrating on reissues from across the extreme metal world, including Venom, Nifelheim, Tiamat and Sacrilege, Dissonant will also unearth some gems from the NWOBHM age that are long overdue re-releasing, including albums by Angel Witch, Satan, Diamond Head, Quartz and Soldier.

Beatty says: “I’m excited by the label, we have unearthed some real gems and we are signing some great acts that I am honoured to be working with. Old friendships are being renewed and new partnerships found. It’s old school and I love it.”

Doherty adds: “It’s a great start for the label and we have some amazing releases being scheduled. The label will stand out as a key player in this market, I feel a real shot in the arm with what we have coming up.”

As the celebrated Geordie folk song ‘The Lambton Worm’ kicks off; “Whisht! lads, haad yor gobs, I’ll tell ye aal an aaful story”.

Or for those of us who don’t speak Geordie, the awful story we’re asking you to hold your mouths for concerns an early-‘80s period in which the North-East was an epicentre for a shockwave of pulse-racing Heavy Metal whose influence can still be felt in extremis some thirty-five years on. Whereas The Lambton Worm was a mythical beast that rose to terrorise the North-East, a certain strain of terror was spawned in just such territory by three Tyne & Wear lads ripping apart the metal rulebook in search of shocks, horror and glory galore. This band, of course, was VENOM, and in this issue Iron Fist talk to Cronos on a four-decade mission of life as a blasphemous iconoclast and full-throttle Black Metal bezerker.

What’s more, we travel back in time to the dawn of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal to chart the roots of NEAT RECORDS, harking back to an era in which the upstairs of a bingo hall in Wallsend was the launchpad for a strain of supercharged audial aggro that would inspire a generation. … Read More

“Infant Death was formed by me and Knegge in October 2012. We both made songs and rehearsed them with me on drums and him on guitar, here in Trondheim, Norway. We got our bassist Udyr in spring last year, right after we had finished recording our debut ‘War’. He was the scariest guy we could think of and he plays a Rickenbacker. We rehearse nearly every day in a World War II-bunker.”

Whoa. A World War-II era bunker? Hellhammer/early Celtic Frost practiced in a bunker rehearsal room too. “Our basic influence is early stuff from old bands that play over ability: Venom, Exodus, Razor, etc,” Kim Kane muses. “An obscure influence might be Tina Turner. Chew on that.” What would Mrs Turner think of a moniker like Infant Death? “We needed something that we thought the common person would be disgusted by. None were though. It seems like people in general don’t know what Infant Death means here. An attitude with a naive madness is what it means to us.” This might explain Infant Death’s wonderfully antagonistic style that Kim describes as, “deadly thrash metal with black metal and grind influences. Right now we’re in the early stages of composing our third album. We will record … Read More

Pinpointing a certain sound to a geographical place has become almost impossible, mainly thanks to the internet and how it globally manipulates trends. So, it may be with some skepticism that people would meet WHIPSTRIKER, a Brazilian band. If someone told you that some of the most brutally honest metalpunk came from Rio, albeit tinged with the elixir of the metal gods, you’d probably tell them the next classic TNBM record would come from rural Ireland. However, living in Rio seems like living out a Discharge lyrics sheet, and Whipstriker mainman VICTOR took time out from his hectic recording schedule to talk about metal and life in Rio’s favelas. Historians can write what they like in their textbooks, but musicians (usually) tell the truth in their songs…                                                                                                                          

How did you get the name Whipstriker exactly? Victor Whipstriker: “I really don’t remember. I … Read More